BLADDER PROBLEM ?

Question
Sheepy is my 2yrs 9months old girl.  She is healthy until recently my caretaker found her resting in weird position, i.e. resting her tummy on other buns body.  She is a toilet-trained girl and lost her habit recently too.  Sometimes she just peed 1 time a day but a lot, The PH of the urine is high and the colour is dark brown & chalky. The vet suspected is bladder stone but X-ray taken shown no sign of stone.  Therefore the vet treated as infection and giving antiotic.  The condition is not improving since last week and I consider to have ultrasound treatment.  Is it safe to go ahead or what should I do?  

Answer
Dear Jackie,

It sounds as if Sheepy is a "sludge bunny," one who produces abnormal calcium salts and has constant residue in the bladder.  Typically, sludge is rather grainy and the color of dark curry powder, unlike normal calcium salts in the urine, which are a chalky white.

I'm not sure what you mean by "ultrasound treatment," since ultrasound is generally diagnostic tool to help figure out what's going on--not a cure.  

Antibiotics are actually not a bad idea in a case like this, though ideally one should have a culture and sensitivity done on a clean sample of urine:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/culture.html

Please also see:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/urinary.html

We have a couple of sludge bunnies, and to tell you the truth the most effective treatment we've found is to keep them very well hydrated so that expression of the bladder (after giving it a good jiggle to suspend the "sludge")  will yield a good quantity of sludge, preventing it from building up in the bladder.

Bladder sludge is usually a sign of metabolic bone disease, and rabbits with this problem often have *lower* than normal blood calcium levels, as they are constantly excreting calcium as they lose it from their bones.  Rabbits with this problem also should be monitored for any sign of dental problems (e.g., molar spurs), since osteoporosis in the jaws is common in rabbits with metabolic bone disease, resulting in malocclusion and a need for filing of the teeth:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/dental.html

Your bunny is relatively young to be having sludge problems.  It might not be a bad idea to see if daily sunshine will help.  Some of the most expert vets in the area of rabbit dental disease and metabolic bone disease are convinced that a lack of sunshine (and hence, inadequate Vitamin D metabolism) are major factors in such apparently unassociated disorders as molar spurs and bladder sludge.

For the short term, you might want to ask the vet about a course of subcutaneous fluids and bladder expression to really flush things out and be sure she's well hydrated.  Have the vet show you how to safely express the bladder, and you can do this at home for a week or so and see if the condition improves.  We've found that this treatment really does help, though it might be a "lifetime maintenance" kind of thing.

Hope this helps!

Dana